a little something in the meantime . . .: September 2012

Thursday, September 27, 2012

{Quick and Easy} Paint Chip Pumpkins

Aren’t these adorable?

If you’re looking for an easy way to decorate for fall, you’re in the right place because these paint chip pumpkins are SO easy to make.

Two years ago I found this tutorial for paint chip pumpkins and used it to make Thanksgiving decorations with my sister-in-law.

The hot glue part was a bit tricky (and painful) and made it so that they took up a lot of space when stored. Then, last year I realized that I could eliminate the hot glue and create pumpkins that were collapsible for storage using the same method as my paint chip balls.

Here’s the quick step-by-step:

The process for making pumpkins is the same as above with one extra step – hot glue a piece of a branch to the top to create the stem.

{Quick Tip: Choose a flat brad like a square that will allow you to glue your stem almost flush with the top of the pumpkin}

When it’s time to put them away, they will look like step 5 above except with a stem.

Nice and compact (and almost free).

So . . . what’s stopping you from making paint chip pumpkins in every colour imaginable?

Orange, cream, chartreuse.

Ombre.

I finally found a chippy chair at a garage sale for $2.00.

It was the perfect backdrop for my photos!

Swoon.

In my next post I’ll be sharing a different pumpkin DIY that looks just as good on my chair.

Come back soon!

P.S. FYI - Mr. Mechanic and I are far-too-regular customers at many home improvement stores!

P.P.S. Want to see more of my paint chip projects? Here you go!

Psst - I’m linking up to Sarah’s Easy Fall Decor Linky Party!

I link up at: Serenity Now, I {Heart} Naptime, Under The Table And Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things, Simply Klassic Home, Home Stories A to Z, Craftomaniac, Skip To My Lou, Not JUST A Housewife, A Bowl Full Of Lemons, Alderberry Hill, I Should Be Mopping The Floor, A Diamond In The Stuff, Creatively Living, The Winthrop Chronicles, Clean & Scentsible, Oopsey Daisy, Lil’ Luna, Someday Crafts, Live.Laugh.Rowe, The 36th Avenue, aka design, House of Hepworths, 52 Mantels, Thrifty Decorating, Crafty Scrappy Happy, How To Nest For Less, Tatertots & Jello, The Grant Life, It’s Overflowing, Lolly Jane, Too Much Time, Six Sisters’ Stuff, Positively Splendid, My {Re}purposed Life, Unrefined By Design, Just Us Four, Liz Marie Blog and The Crafted Sparrow

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

My Fall Mantel: Pumpkin Edition

Mr. Mechanic and I have a cat named Pumpkin so it’s safe to say that we enjoy all things fall.

She’s gray not orange and her name was first a term of endearment when we decided to rename her after her adoption. She started out life as ‘Peppy’ but is definitely a Pumpkin.

I’m telling you this because Pumpkin was my inspiration for this year’s fall mantel.

I brought my tub of fall decorations upstairs, took out a frame wrapped in butcher paper and walked away for a minute. When I came back upstairs she was sitting right on top of it!

As I unpacked my decor, a pumpkin patch started to grow!

Since it’s Thanksgiving in two weeks, I decorate for fall first and then add touches of Halloween later.

I was already working on a fall sign, so I decided to run with the pumpkin theme this year.

Here it is!

From Left to Right:

I used my Silhouette to create a stencil for my own sign after seeing this T.J. Maxx inspiration on the blog A Bowl Full of Lemons.

I even made a cameo appearance in my attempt to get a photo that was front and center. Peekaboo!

This mantel is a great mix of old, new and a handful of D.I.Y. projects. Just the way I like it!

The two small bottles were cottage finds (the little one is actually an old Buckley’s bottle) and the tall bottle came from Goodwill last year. The braided jute ring is a 50 cent napkin ring from Michaels that I thought looked rustic.

My frame (which Pumpkin was sitting on) is a plastic Dollarama frame that I painted and glazed last fall to bring out the corner details. It is sitting on a book, also from Dollarama, which I wrapped with Kraft paper to cover the title. The edges of the pages have a fantastic texture to them!

The printable was created by Kristin at Simply Klassic Home. You can download your own copy of this beauty here.

The glass acorn was a clearance Michaels find last year in the Thanksgiving decor. Are you noticing a pattern here?

All of the pumpkins and the sprig of bittersweet (thanks, Bronwyn!) are from Dollarama, Walmart or Michaels. I painted some of them and left others their original colour. The little orange and yellow pumpkin on the right definitely needs to be a different colour. Any suggestions?

I made the burlap fall banner last year after seeing them everywhere. Super easy. Just burlap, acrylic paint, letter stencils (pre-Silhouette!) and twine.

My owls are from HomeSense (big: 2011, little: 2012) and the metal basket was my only splurge (HomeSense again) because I knew it would be a great way to display my birch logs. I scooped a big branch from my neighbours’ yard before the wood chipper got to it when the hydro company did their line maintenance last winter. Remember my poor tree?

The pumpkin on top is a faux pumpkin from Michaels that I spray painted Heirloom White.

Finally, the white lantern on the floor was a summer 2011 purchase from HomeSense. I filled the base with strips of burlap, pinecones and mini pumpkins to give it a less summery look.

(In case you’re wondering, that arrowhead plant in the pot lives on the mantel year-round because of how much it hangs so I just work around it. We re-potted it this summer and it loves its new digs!)

Thank you so much for checking out my mantel!

P.S. Want to know a ridiculously easy way to hang a banner? Check out my trick here!

P.P.S. Did you see my fall planter? The mums and asters are really starting to fill out now!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

How To: Customize A Pre-Made Planter For Fall

On the weekend we bought a 12 inch fall planter from Rona for $14.99. After looking at plants and planters for the last few weeks, I knew that I could not buy the plants that made up the planter for less than that price. The pre-made planter included an aster, a mum, a very large kale plant and a spike. Added bonus: the asters and mum will bloom again next year if I plant them in the garden afterwards.

I was a little thrown by the asymmetrical flower arrangement (in particular, the spike) but I knew that I could tweak it once I brought it home.

I tried it out in both of my urns and discovered that it wouldn’t fit in either one, so I tested it in my go-to fall planter, a wooden barrel that I bought a few years ago from the grocery store that has more than paid for itself.

Good, but not great. That’s where a few more plants come into play.

Time to customize!

Since the barrel is wooden, I lined it with an industrial garbage bag to contain the moisture and cut several holes in the bottom of the bag for drainage This worked really well for my summer window boxes that are still thriving today.

Then I used the newspaper trick from my spring planters to keep the weight down.

From there it was just a matter of filling the planter with soil, carefully separating the plants that were in the pre-made planter and arranging everything the way I wanted it in the barrel.

Here’s what I ended up with:

And this is what I used if you like what you see:

I know it’s not officially fall until Saturday, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave this hiding in the backyard!

I can’t wait to see how it fills out!

How much did it cost?

Pre-made planter: $14.99
Ornamental grass: $5.99
Kale: $1.98 x 2 ($3.96)
Soil: $4.94 (used for this + 3 other fall planters)
Barrel: $0 (already owned)

____________________________

Total: $30 + tax for an enormous custom planter!

Our porch has never looked better than in 2012.

Please, take a peek at how it has evolved through the seasons:

Spring 2012

Summer 2012

Fall 2012

(so far . . . I’m just getting started!)

More fall projects are on the way soon!

P.S. Thank you so much for all your sweet comments about Maggie. It meant so much to me.

P.P.S. Check out how to quickly update your mailbox with a vinyl monogram here.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Saying Goodbye/Beverage Tub Makeover

Today, blogs and blogging provided me with a much needed diversion on a hard day for my family.

We had to say goodbye to this little lady.

Maggie turned 13 in August but had a rapid decline in her health starting around March of this year.

Prior to this Maggie was a cat who stayed kitten-sized and acted like one as well.

She always had a daredevil streak to her which may have stemmed from the fact that when we adopted her as a kitten from the Humane Society she had already fallen from a 14th floor balcony into a snow bank. She loved to be up high and would spend her time watching you from the top of the kitchen cupboards or her scratching post tower.

Even though I no longer live at home, I still think of Maggie and Buddy (my parents’ other cat) as my pets because I was there with them from the beginning. I will always remember Maggie being so small that her entire body would vibrate when she purred.

I have never met another cat like her and I’m sure I never will.

When I had my final visit with Maggie on Sunday night, I knew my parents had made the right decision and that her time had come. I’m relieved that she is no longer suffering, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

To quote my Mom, “Maggie had a happy life and a peaceful end, and we will love her forever.”

We miss you, Maggie!

Now for what I had originally planned to share before life threw me a curveball . . .

Throughout the summer I kept tabs on the price of this metal beverage tub from Lowe’s knowing that I could use it for . . . something. The outside looks like white enamel and the inside is galvanized metal.

When it finally reached a clearance price of around $7, I pounced after striking a deal with Mr. Mechanic that I would clean up the Laundry Room if we bought it.

The Laundry Room is still a disaster (shh!) but my tub looks adorable thanks to a quick and easy vinyl makeover.

I learned from this post that there is a free font {SL Wash} made up completely of laundry symbols.

You can download SL Wash here or by clicking on the image below.

I typed the letters that corresponded with wash, dry and iron in Silhouette Studio and resized them until they were all the same height. Then I cut them out of black vinyl with my Silhouette.

Finally, I used a combination of transfer and painter’s tape to place the symbols on my tub.

I’m not going to lie, it was a pain in the butt to try to align them on a curved surface, but it was worth the aggravation in the end!

Wouldn’t you agree?

While the rest of the Laundry Room is still nothing worth sharing thanks to an on-going basement renovation, my kitchen towels and rags have a cute place to hang out until I accumulate enough to justify a load of laundry.

Thanks for sticking with me today!

P.S. Don’t even ask about that chair. It’s a DIY Chalk Paint experiment that went terribly wrong. I’m starting to realize that painting furniture is not my thing.

P.P.S. If you like fonts you should check out my board on Pinterest for some great suggestions!